Golf has spent years chasing better data. Launch monitors clock every swing. Shot trackers map every miss. Distance-measuring devices leave nothing to guesswork. But nothing prepared golfers for this: some courses are now letting artificial intelligence (AI) decide where the pin goes. PGA Tour pro Michael Kim heard about it on September 7, 2026 and took to X, still not quite believing it. The reason behind it is even stranger than the idea itself.
“Something I heard today which I found hilarious,” Kim wrote on X. “Golf courses are using AI for pin locations. Members were getting tired of similar pin locations, so many courses have adopted an AI system to select pin locations.”
Kim found the idea funny. But it turns out there’s real logic behind it. The technology behind it is also more advanced than many golfers may think.
Pin placement has always been very important in golf. Moving a flag just six feet can change how a hole is played. It can create new angles, add more risk, and test different parts of a golfer’s game. For example, a back-left pin on a sloping green can be very different from a front-center pin on the same green.
For club members who play the same course every week, repeating pin positions can make the game feel boring and predictable. In the past, course superintendents and club professionals usually chose the pin locations themselves. They would walk the course and pick spots based on their experience and knowledge of the greens.
Give the system enough history and a read on current course conditions, and it can move pins around on its own, no human input needed. That solves the boredom problem right away. It also fixes something most superintendents probably wouldn’t admit to: after enough rounds, everyone gravitates toward the same few “good” pin spots without even realizing it. None of this comes out of nowhere, either. Golf associations, city tournaments, private clubs, and weekly leagues already run on digital pin-sheet platforms that let staff pick pin locations, calculate distances automatically, and send out updated sheets in minutes.
Most golf courses still haven’t touched AI in any real way, so the few that have are ahead of the curve for now. Courses near Seoul are already running robot caddies, and some simulators adjust pin positions based on a golfer’s handicap. Nobody’s counting how many clubs use AI for pin locations specifically, so it’s hard to say if Kim stumbled onto a real trend or just a few clubs experimenting. Either way, the technology needed to automate course setup is already being used in golf, so having AI choose the actual pin locations would simply be the next step, not a huge change, just a small move forward.
Kim’s post comes at an interesting time for golf and its growing use of data and technology.
PGA Tour Enterprises filed a patent application on September 2, 2025. It was published on June 25, 2026. The filing describes a golf tournament system that uses past data and computer simulations to help set up courses. This includes choosing tee and pin locations.
The system can test how players might perform on different course setups. It can also predict scores and check if a certain setup would create the type of results the tournament wants.
The patent describes a system that can run many simulations of golf holes. It can calculate the best landing areas for players’ shots and predict their trajectory based on past data, repeating the process until the ball reaches the green.
In simple terms, the system can predict how a whole group of players might perform on different course layouts before the tournament even begins.
The system can also help decide where sensors and tracking devices should be placed for media coverage. This means the same technology could help find the best camera angles for TV broadcasts.
This makes it more than just a simple tool. It is designed to help manage different parts of a golf course using data.
This represents a notable shift from a club professional simply walking around the course and choosing pin locations based on what looks good. The PGA Tour is working toward making course setup more data-driven at the highest level of golf. Over time, technology used on the PGA Tour could also make its way to regular golf clubs.
Kim’s funny reaction also shows something real about where golf is heading. Golf has always been a sport built on tradition and human decisions. But now, it is slowly using more data and technology to make calls that course superintendents and tournament officials have long made based on experience.
The members who were tired of seeing the same pin positions every Saturday probably did not expect machine learning to be part of the solution. But that may be the direction golf is now taking.